Cheap, Cheaper, Cheapest

1:27That's why there's no shiur. That's why there's no measure to the punishment of a person who's stingy. Why? Because you're never going to understand the damage you caused a poor person when you didn't give to him. You're never going to understand how hungry he was. A rich person will never understand what it feels like to be starving. Unless they have special siyata dishmaya, like this one person in the book Daas Chaim. He didn't write stories like Harry Potter. He wrote stories that he verified and saw and knew were real. The Daas Chaim tells a story that's mamash unbelievable, but it's real. He says there was a certain guy, frum, religious, loved learning Torah. Loved learning Torah. There was only one mitzvah that he hated like a plague, and that was to give tzedakah (charity). He loved money so much that he had a rule in his house: anyone that asked for tzedakah, we insult them, we abuse them, we do everything, but we don't give them anything. We don't give tzedakah at all. Now, one time a person came to him and asked him for money and...

2:53Not only did he eat food in front of them and not give him anything, Hashem, but he learned a lot of Torah and became a Talmid Chacham, though still as stingy as can be. People would come and say, "Oh, give me a chiddush," and the guy would start giving them chiddush after chiddush, expecting perhaps at the end he'd at least give them a sandwich because they were starving. He finished telling the Dvar Torah for one or two hours. "Okay, thank you." bottle-of-water good, not even the bottle of water. Thank you. My rav said one time a big talmid chacham came after he hadn't eaten in three days. They told him, "Go to his house, maybe he'll give you something. He's very rich, and..." He goes to this house to go. "Okay, I'm about to eat." Sure enough, they put out the steaks, the children, the chicken, the ducks, and whatever else—the whole house is over there on the table. The guy is drooling. He wants to eat, and it's been said that he hasn't eaten in three days. "Oh, you come for this? It can't be, it's about Torah." So he's thinking, "This is a normal human being. Okay, maybe he likes Torah more than he likes food, fine, I'll let him eat. I'm gonna say it to him after he digests everything."

4:14Saying, "I can eat myself," he starts selling the Torah for hours — one hour, two hours, three hours. He's eating, he's eating, he's eating, and he's not giving him a single thing. After three hours, he asks, "It's okay, can I have some?" "No, it's not, you finished. That's not what I asked you to do," the guy replies, after not eating for three days. Having such a desire to eat, upon seeing all the food in front of him, he began to feel dizzy. Realizing he could no longer control himself, he told his sons, "Take him and throw him out of here." They took the poor man and threw him outside. The poor man was so overwhelmed that he fell and died. Now, the wealthy rasha... David Haim says one day he had a business trip in a different city. On his way, he stopped and saw a demon approaching him, saying, "I'm here to kill you."

5:36Yeah, but I learned a lot of Torah, he started arguing for himself. "Don't kill me." And then, all of a sudden, in the last moment, he sees the tzaddik that died appear and says, "I came from Beit Din of Shamayim and I argued for you because you did learn Torah, not to kill you. But there are only two options: one, they kill you; two..." You take these clothes that I'm going to give you, and you're decreed to be in exile for a year. The only place you can eat from is your own house. Once you put these clothes on, they're going to change your appearance, and no one will be able to tell who you are. You're just going to look like a homeless person. Either that, or you can come to Shamayim, and they'll do a different judgment for you.

6:37Obviously, he accepts the deal. He takes the clothes—the mystical clothes, the magical clothes—puts them on, and he looks like somebody else completely. Now, he has to go back home. He wants to eat. Yes, he comes to the house. What is he like? A poor person? They throw him out; they throw stuff at him and say, "Get out of here! Get out of here! We don't give money to poor people." They start making fun of him. He comes back the next day. They yelled and they kicked him, they beat him up, and threw him out. On the third day, starving, as it hasn't even been three days. They say, "Okay, what do you want? You want to eat something? You want to drink something? Come, come, come." They call him to a puddle outside in the backyard, saying, "Come, we want you to drink from the floor." And he drinks from the floor. The next day... Comes back. I want to eat. I'm starving. Oh, you want some food? Come, come, come over here. They give him the garbage pail. "Come, come, eat from the garbage like a dog." Now they learned this behavior from whom? From him. To be so evil, they learned from him. This continues about...

7:51year after year. They don't know where their father went. But all they know is they have this homeless guy coming, and every day they're having a blast abusing him: "Eat from the floor, eat throw-up, eat food that went bad, eat my most animal of animals." After and every so often, he wants to break; he wants to harm himself, and that voice comes back to him and tells him, "You're almost finished. You're almost finished. Keep going." It's as if the struggle was fought for him in his mind. This is the profound style of Torah, offering encouragement and perseverance. He continues, and after a year, it's time for him to come home. He writes a letter to his family. he's been away for a year, and he's sorry that he wasn't able to contact them. He was very, very busy, but to prepare, he's coming home on such-and-such day. I

8:53Not that he comes, everybody's hugging him. "Wow, we missed you. We love you. Where have you been? We couldn't believe it, we couldn't talk to you. How did you guys make it without me?" "Listen, we really missed you. But to tell you the truth, we had this homeless guy come every day. We had a blast with him. Don't worry, Abba, we didn't break the rules of the house. We made sure not to give him anything, and anything he got was just a waste — the garbage and stuff that we threw out already." The bad meat, the food that we stepped on already, the water from the puddles, all the garbage, just to have a blast. This guy was making us laugh the whole year. He goes, "Really? Let me see him. I want to see him." "Okay, he's going to come. He's going to come." All of a sudden, he goes, he hides, he puts the clothes back on. the bad meat, the food that we stepped on already, the water from the puddles, all the garbage, just to have a blast. This guy was making us laugh the whole year. He goes, really? Let me see him. I want to see him. Okay, he's going to come. He's going to come. All of a sudden, he goes, he hides, he puts the clothes back on. And he comes back to them. He's like, "Oh yeah, yeah, come, come, let me show you to Abba." They don't know it's him. They don’t realize it’s actually him. And look, they see the father is nowhere to be found. They're like, "Ah, Abba’s not here. Get out of here." He takes off the clothes, comes back as the father. He goes, "No, it's a worry." He says, "Abba, he just came." "Okay, we're going to go look for him." And this pattern repeats itself three times. After the third time, he says, "My children, watch one second. Stay here."

10:12Look who leaves and look who comes back, and everyone realizes what happened. Everyone wants to disappear out of remorse. Why? They just realized that they've been abusing, insulting, and torturing their father the whole time. He says, "I don't fault you at all for everything you did because I taught you everything." There's no suffering that I've ever endured like I did in the last year. But it's all my fault, and from this moment on, there's no such thing in this house as "my money." Everything is for everyone in this household. It became a big house of generosity, and many poor people keep coming. There was a person who had some serious troubles and wrote. What do we have? The point is that he paid, he paid a heavy price, but it's still cheap considering what he did, and... still cheap considering what he did.